Butterfly Effect
by Azalia Fox Knightling
Summary: Death allows Harry to save one unknown person from a list of people who died before they could have affected Tom Riddle's childhood.


**Disclaimer : I do not own Harry Potter.**

 **Summary:** Death allows Harry to save one unknown person from a list of people who died before they could have affected Tom Riddle's childhood.

 **Butterfly Effect by Azalia Fox Knightling**

 **Chapter 1: Death**

 _But though Death searched for the third brother for many years, he was never able to find him. It was only when he had attained a great age that the youngest brother finally took off the Cloak of Invisibility and gave it to his son. And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life."_

 _-_ _ **Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,**_ _Chapter Twenty-One_

A man with unruly, salt and paper hair and black, wire-rimmed glasses stared pensively at the pair of hands clasped together above his woolen blanket. His hand littered with callouses, a few words were formed on one hand and the few odd scars from the odd accident or two lay on the other. It was strange to think that with his profession and his unavoidable habit of being unable to avoid trouble that he had never ended up looking like another man long gone. 'Or with his temperament,' he thought wryly, 'after everything that's happened so far, I'm lucky to not be as paranoid as Mad-Eye Moody. Though his blue eye would have been rather useful.'

From down the hallway, a grandfather clock chimed marking the hour.

Harry remembered the day Draco had appeared with it after taking one look at the clock that Ginny had enchanted to keep track of the Potters' and Teddy Lupin's whereabouts. It's only downfall Draco had determined was that it looked very unbecoming in #12 Grimmauld Place and it didn't even give the actual time. (Secretly Harry also agreed but he would never speak of it to his wife.) Draco had amusingly placed a permanent sticking charm so that Ginny would be unable to remove the grandfather clock from its place and had given Ginny's clock to Kreacher for safekeeping. The new clock had been charmed to not only tell time and keep track of his family's whereabouts but it also gave the time of other time zones and if asked, it also gave a report of the weather from a variety of places, along with a variety of other equally useful features.

Somehow between Harry's son, Albus, and Draco's son, Scorpius, becoming really good friends and having their fair share of adventures with Ron and Hermione's daughter, Rose; Harry and Draco somehow managed to go from cool acknowledgement to becoming decent friends. Ginny had always been between cool acceptance and decently friendly until an argument started. 'Ginny and Ron had always been closer to Astoria, Draco's wife, than Draco anyways.'

Out of his peripheral vision, Harry noticed that the shadows appeared to be moving and forming into a figure.

"You don't happen to be waiting for it to become midnight, are you?"

A hooded figure appeared to be standing at Harry's bedside but on closer inspection was floating above the ground, the bottom of its cloak blending into the shadows. The only part of its body visible from underneath the cloak was its hands; pale, skeletal hands that at the moment were paused at its sides.

"I've chased you for many years and you've escaped time and time again, much like your ancestor."

"I would apologize for all the trouble I've caused but I've learned that trouble seems to quite like me."

Memories of all the times he could have died appeared in his mind's eye; Lord Voldemort, Aunt Marge's Ripper, Lord Voldemort again, the basilisk, a Dementer's Kiss, a nesting Hungarian Horntail, another reemergence of Lord Voldemort. The list went on and on. His life, he noted was marked to die from the moment he was born. It was just largely unsure of the when but it could have been any minute. At least now he could have a peaceful death to his rather chaotic life.

Harry paused, sensing the unspoken question that the figure appeared to be asking. He knew that if he had wanted, he could have lived to be as old as Dumbledore or even, say, Lord Voldemort for example. _He_ had died at 73; an age that wasn't very impressive by today's standards considering the lengths _he_ had forgone for immortality. But Harry knew it was time for him to go. Harry had lived long enough to marry and have 3 beautiful and healthy children and to see them marry and have children of their own. They've all led rather successful lives. Ron still claims his finest moment was when the trio of friends received their own chocolate frog cards. For a long time, Harry had known his time was coming, especially after Ginny had passed three years previous from Dragon Pox, so there was no real need to worry about her. (There had been an outbreak at the Daily Prophet after an incensed reader had sent a contaminated letter after a poorly worded article that had incidentally been printed from another department. Ginny had been visiting Ron and had accidentally passed it on to him. Ron had managed to hold out for a year and half longer than Ginny in St. Mungo's Second Floor for Magical Bugs and Diseases but in the end was claimed by Death. Hermione had decided to move out of their home saying that it stirred too many memories and she was lonely. She moved in with her children soon after.)

"Ginny and Ron are probably driving each other mad over there. I suppose it's time…I've had enough excitement in my life."

It was with that statement that Death offered out one of his pale, skeletal hands to Harry. A soothing, coolness gently crawled up Harry's arm as he held onto Death. The skin of his body paled and deadened. And with one hand Death brushed Harry's eyes closed as if he were sleeping(a small kindness to the relatives that would surely discover him in the morning) and then reached out and gently enveloped a ghostly figure into his arms; disappearing into the shadows from whence Death came.

 **Author's Note**

 **Ripper was one of Aunt Marge's 12 bulldogs that had chased Harry into a tree when he was younger. There was probably never a real danger there, considering Ripper was upset that Harry had accidentally trodden onto his paw, but if Harry had fallen out of the tree he could have fallen on his neck and died which is what Ripper being mentioned earlier on alluded to. I wanted to have at least one very average way Harry could have died in comparison to threats like Dementers, Lord Voldemort, and various other magical causes.**

 **I made up the whole Dragon Pox thing on a whim. It's supposed to be highly contagious so I imagine it could be passed through a letter. But the person who wrote the letter was infected with Dragon Pox and was probably too mad about the article (they were from a different department, Ginny works for the Quidditch section of the Daily Prophet), to think about the possibility of it being passed through the letter.**

 **Harry is dying in his mid-60s in this story. I want to say that Albus and his family currently live with Harry. I imagine Albus and James would have argued amongst themselves on who would be the one to take care of dad after their mum died. It would be assumed that Lily is to live with her significant other and their family; a decision that they've ultimately made without her and ends up causing a big row. I think James and his family would have been the one to have lived and taken care of Harry in the years after Ginny passed. Albus and his family is more of a recent move in because James would have the demands of some sort of high profile job that wants him to work overseas that he keeps refusing because he wants to be the one with dad. But in the end, Albus convinces him to take the opportunity.**

 **I'm currently writing out Chapter 2 so it should be out by next week unless I stumble upon a hole that I need to straighten out.**

 **Please review.**


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